To:D. I. KURSKY[1]

Written:Written on May 4, 1918Published:First published inKrasnaya GazetaNo. 260 November 7, 1928.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      page331.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Itis essentialimmediately, with demonstrative speed, to
introduce a Bill stating that the penalty for bribery (
extortion, graft, acting as an agent for bribery,and the like)!

notless than

tenyears’ imprisonment and, in addition, ten years of
compulsory
labour.[2]

[1]Kursky,D. I.(1874–1932)—member of the Bolshevik Party from
1904, People’s Commissar for Justice of the R.S.F.S.R., 1918–28.

[2]Leninwas prompted to write this letter by an incorrect decision
taken by the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, which on May 2,
1918 heard the case against four members of the Moscow
Commission of Investigation charged with bribery and blackmail and passed
a sentence of only six months’ imprisonment. On May 4 Lenin
proposed to the C.C. of the R.C.P.(B.) that the judges who had
passed such a lenient sentence should be expelled from the Party.
Acting on the instructions given by Lenin in this letter, the
Council of People’s Commissars adopted a decision obliging the People’s
Commissariat of Justice “immediately” to draw up a Bill
stipulating a “heavy minimum sentence for bribery and any connivance
in bribery”. The Commissariat of Justice’s Bill was discussed by
the C.P.C. on May 8 and amended by Lenin before it finally
became law.